The Bonds of Family: How One Family’s Experience Tells the Story of the Prison-Industrial System

Author: Cameron Stone

Field of Study: Social Sciences

Program Affiliation: Source Project Research Program

Faculty Mentors: Will Glovinsky

Easel: 55

Timeslot: Afternoon

Abstract: Beginning in the 1960s, a rightward shift in politics and “War on Drugs” policies propelled the United States toward mass incarceration. The result was a prison population of around 2 million people, in which minority groups have been disproportionately imprisoned. While historians and legal scholars have examined the policies and legal structures behind mass incarceration, oral historians working in the tradition of social history emphasize the importance of narratives of those most impacted yet traditionally neglected. This paper specifically examines the relatively unstudied Columbia University's 2019 Mass Incarceration Oral History collection, which explores the interconnected perspectives of one family’s experience within the prison-industrial complex. This archive uncovers a perplexing paradox: the carceral system can provide a community with economic stability via employment, but this economic security relies on the incarceration of their community, even relatives. Furthermore, previous discussions have focused on black and white males, but this research engages with black women, AIDS patients, and prisoner activists.